


Monster (Under My Bed)

by dracusfyre



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Amnesiac Bucky Barnes, BAMF Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2019, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Possessive Venom Symbiote (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-02-27 07:26:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18734377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracusfyre/pseuds/dracusfyre
Summary: Bucky wakes up in the 21st century and realizes that he doesn't remember who he is or why people are trying to kill him.  Eventually he realizes that finding out the answers to those questions means he's going to have to come to terms with the strange voice he keeps hearing in his head...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my submission for the Captain America Reverse Big Bang of 2019! So much thanks to [Saff](https://twitter.com/saffytaffy6) for her amazing artwork! 
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dracusfyre)
> 
> _Monster, monster under my bed_  
>  _Come out and play 'cause I need a friend_  
>  _You're so damn close that I feel your breath_  
>  _You're the only one I have left_   
>  Monster (Under My Bed) by Call Me Karizma

_ “Bucky?” _

That voice was familiar. Bucky swayed, suddenly dizzy, and blinked in the bright sunshine.  All around him was chaos; alarms blaring, cars overturned with oily black smoke curling into the sky, people running and screaming, and sirens in the distance. When his eyes focused, he saw – he saw – was that  _ Steve?  _

**_“Who the hell is Bucky?"_ **  he heard, and as if from outside his body, Bucky saw his arm rise, a pistol in his hand.

"No! " he shouted, forcing his hand and the pistol away from Steve just as something slammed into his chest and knocked him off his feet. He rolled with the impact and landed in a crouch, knife in hand.  A deep growl rumbled in his throat and he could feel his lips pulling back from his teeth as he tensed to jump the man who attacked him, but the sight of Steve running towards him and yelling made him hesitate.   _ What in the hell was going on – _


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky jumped at the sound of a door slamming from far away, then froze, barely breathing.  The chaos of the bridge was gone and now he was sitting on a couch. Without moving anything other than his eyes, he looked around, but there were no hints as to what the fuck was going on here, at least not within immediate eyesight.  The walls were a boring tan color, the floor made of something that looked like hardwood. Other than the couch there was a low table in front of him and a chair to his right; as he turned his head, he saw what looked like a kitchen with a hallway leading off from it.  He held his breath and listened hard, but the only sounds he could hear were barely audible voices coming from the other side of the door in front of him. He stood slowly and carefully, trying to avoid making noise, and drew his knife as he made his way down the hallway. It ended in two bedrooms and a bathroom, both empty.  The windows of the bedrooms looked out onto an unfamiliar street, and when he cracked the front door, all he could see was a concrete landing with a railing overlooking a parking lot. He closed the door and leaned against it, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly as he willed his heart to stop racing. He was in an unfamiliar apartment with no idea how he got here, but the good news was that he seemed to be alone. 

He put his knife away and went through the apartment again, this time searching for answers. A search of the cabinets in the kitchen with revealed a dozen cans of food in the form of beans and soup, and the giant shiny metal box that turned out to be a refrigerator was full of bottles of water.  Seeing the food made him realize he was hungry, so he found a drawer with flimsy white utensils in it and a can opener, so he ate a whole can of chicken soup cold, straight from the can, while eyeing the other appliances in the kitchen with suspicion. There was one mysterious tiny box mounted under the cabinets that Bucky didn’t understand, and something else that looked like it should be a stove, but the top was just flat glass with no apparent burners.   One can didn’t do much for his hunger, so he had another, and while he was eating that he discovered a pantry full of boxes that said things like “power bars” and “energy bars,” whatever that was supposed to mean. One of these boxes said it was chocolate flavored, so Bucky tried one and made a face; it tasted almost as bad the chocolate they’d been provided on the front lines, and that said a lot. But the pinched feeling in his stomach finally was starting to ease, so he ate three more bars until the feeling was gone altogether.

A search of the bedrooms found one with a closet full of brand new, bizarre looking clothes in a variety of sizes while the other only had a safe; he tried the handle but of course it was locked, and nowhere in his search had he come up with anything even close to a combination for it. The bathroom had the biggest surprise of all, however, which was the fucking stranger staring at him from the mirror. 

"Holy shit," he breathed, reaching a hand up to touch his hair, which was long enough to brush his shoulders. He trailed his fingers over the stubble on his cheeks, wincing when he saw what he was wearing and realized that he looked like a dangerous murder hobo.  "Christ, no wonder Steve was staring," he muttered. He turned on the faucet to rinse his face off and paused when he started to take off his gloves. Looking at his left hand more closely, he frowned in confusion. He’d noticed earlier, in a vague way, that his hands were black and had assumed he was wearing gloves, and on his right hand, he was.  But on his left, there was no seam where a glove would end, no wrinkles or indication that the deep, inky black was anything but the color of his skin. He pulled off the glove of his right hand and touched the palm of his left; the sensation was strange, both the rubbery feel of the skin under his fingertips and the distant feeling of pressure coming from the palm of his hand. 

"Um, what the fuck," he said, scraping his nails across his palm as a rising bubble of panic starting to make his chest feel tight. He started scrabbling at the leather straps and fastenings of the strange uniform he was wearing, his movements jerky and uncoordinated as he pulled the clothes off, ignoring the knives and pistols that clattered to the floor.  The blackness went all the way to his shoulder before it faded into his skin; scrubbing at it with his free hand did nothing, nor did picking at it with his nails. He kicked off his boots and peeled off his canvas pants, but the arm was the only part of his body that was covered with that strange blackness. The steady drumbeat of panic was a tension in his shoulders, crawling up his neck to drive talons of pain into his skull as he dug his fingernails into it again, determined to find an end to it and reveal the real skin and bone underneath.   _ It's spreading _ , he thought wildly, clawing at the seam at his shoulder. He imagined it taking over the rest of his body, covering his mouth, then his eyes, and he couldn't breath, he was suffocating under the darkness- 


	3. Chapter 3

“Bleargh!” He jerked so suddenly from getting a sudden faceful of water that he almost fell over. He braced himself on cool tile and a glass door, realizing that for some reason he was in a shower.  He fumbled with the controls, scalding himself for a moment before he managed to turn the water off, and sat down hard, shivering. The dark, rubbery skin of his arm inevitably caught his eye again; the water had beaded up on it and was running off like the surface was oiled or greasy.  He rubbed the thumb and fingers of the hand together, noting distantly that the sensation seemed no different than his other hand. He could feel the cool slickness of the shower tiles, the roughness of his stubble, but not the sharpness of his nails when he dug one into the pad of his thumb.  With a sigh, he realized that whatever it was, it wasn't coming off any time soon, and he wasn't going to find any answers sitting here in the shower. He gave himself a few more minutes to feel sorry for himself before he levered himself to his feet and stepped out of the shower stall, finding towels stacked helpfully under the sink.

After he dried off, he used one of them to wipe off the mirror, staring at himself critically.  He examined the rest of himself more closely than he’d done earlier when he was searching for more of the black stuff, and found that he had scars that he didn’t remember; with a distant numbness that he realized was probably shell shock, he stared at a long, thin, silvered scar on his thigh and thought,  _ It looks like someone stabbed me. I was stabbed, then I healed, and it’s been long enough that the scar is almost gone.  _ How long did that take? A year? Less? A wound that deep could have been fatal, but he didn't remember how he got it. The last thing he could remember was –

Was –

He froze. Why couldn’t he remember?  He pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes, trying to concentrate. His name was Bucky, which was short for – fuck. It was right on the tip of his tongue.

_ Steve _ , his brain seized on instead.  He recognized Steve. Steve was his friend. Steve was an idiot. Steve was –

**_Our mission._ **

“No,” Bucky said emphatically.  He braced his hands on the counter and stared into his eyes, the only part of him that looked familiar. He remembered Steve, he would never hurt Steve.  He had a sense memory of pulling someone close and wrapping an arm around narrow bony shoulders, smiling down at a grumbling blonde head. But that definitely wasn’t the man he’d seen before…was it? His hands tightened on the counter as his head spun, the throbbing of his headache making it hard to think.  He closed his eyes to concentrate, chasing the thread of memory -  _ Jesus, Buck, I thought you were dead _ \- 

He didn't realize he was holding his breath until his lungs started screaming at him.  With a long, ragged inhale, he managed to choke off the bubbling, sickly feeling of terror before it could trigger another panic attack and maybe another blackout, and went to get redressed in the new, clean clothes he’d discovered in the spare bedroom.  He pulled on the same boots he’d been wearing and tucked a knife into each one, then pulled out a pistol from his old gear. Though it looked unfamiliar, his hands knew what to do with it; he ejected the magazine and checked the rounds before pushing it back in and tucking it into the small of his back.  If the clock on the wall could be believed, he'd only lost a half hour to the black out but he searched the apartment again anyway just to make sure he was still alone.

When he was done, he sat on the long low table in front of the couch and considered the front door.  What he needed most now was answers, and it didn’t seem like he was going to find them in this strange, empty apartment.  Other than the stubbornly locked safe, there was nothing, no radio or newspaper or anything to give him a clue where he was or what day it was.  Steve was out there somewhere, maybe looking for him, and he wanted to see Steve with an intensity that was almost physically painful. If Steve didn't have the answers Bucky was looking for, he would have an idea where to start looking, because that's what he did, who he was. 

"Okay, Bucky," he said to himself, standing and approaching the door cautiously like there were landmines on the other side.  “Intelligence reconnaissance mission. Objective: discover current location. And date,” he added under his breath, tucking his damp, too-long hair under a baseball cap. “Then retreat and regroup to form new mission.  You can do this.” He blew out a breath and reached for the door locks.

The world outside was noisy and confusing, oddly sleek looking cars honking loudly in the street and people rushing around him impatiently.  The metal and glass buildings reflected the clear blue sky and their strangeness was making him dizzy, so he pulled his cap further down on his forehead and focused on his goal: the row of boxes at the street corner that looked like they were full of newspapers.   _ ATTACK ON DC _ , one of them said in giant letters over a photo of what looked like a giant floating aircraft carrier falling out of the sky, covered in flames.  The next one said  _ WHO IS HYDRA? _  and had a picture of a red skull with tentacles coming out of it, an image that made his stomach turn and a chill go down his spine.  Bucky stared at that for a long time before he noticed a small photo in the corner of the paper, a picture of a man wearing a blue cowl and a stern impression with the words  _ Is Cap Hydra? _

“Bullshit,” Bucky said with a frown, not really sure why those words made him so irrationally angry, then the date on the paper caught his attention. When he saw the year he read it three times, even said it out loud, then he turned on his heel and went right back inside, slamming the door behind him and sliding down to the floor.  The date kept circling in his head, seeming increasingly unreal the more he thought about it.

How in the  _ hell  _ was it 2014? 

It wasn't until he started feeling lightheaded that he realized that his heart was racing and his breath was coming too fast and shallow; he was hyperventilating, and if he didn't calm down he'd probably have another one of those damn blackouts again.  So he forced himself to his feet and staggered to the bathroom to splash water on his face, holding his head under the faucet until he stopped feeling so shaky. Turning off the spigot, he closed his eyes and focused on breathing, forcing himself not to think about the date, about how it was fucking  _ 2014 _ , about  _ crazy _ and _ impossible _ and  _ unreal _ that was- 

With a roar he lashed out and punched the mirror, shattering it and denting the wall behind. "God dammit," he cursed, stalking out of the bathroom.  He paced around the apartment, running his hands through his hair, until he came to a stop in front of the front door again, jaw set. He’d gone past fear into anger now, and as much as he wanted to go outside and start punching things until someone gave him some goddamn answers, a more rational first step was to get his hands on some of those newspapers.  There was no damn way it was a coincidence that he found himself in the future at the same time that Hydra launched some kind of attack on DC. The headline _ Is Cap Hydra? _ had triggered something, even if he didn’t quite know what, so he would read everything he could get until he found something he understood.

Half of the newspaper boxes were locked, but they all gave way with a firm yank; Bucky looked around guiltily to see if anyone noticed, but everyone else was too busy going about their day to pay attention to him grabbing as many different newspapers as he could carry.  Once his hands were full, he looked up and down the block. Reconnoitering the neighborhood was probably smart if he was going to make the apartment his operating base, so with a deep, fortifying breath he rolled up the newspapers, tucked them under his arm, and shoved his suspiciously black hand into his pockets to explore. 

He had intended to only circle the block, but the further he went the more baffled and fascinated he was by what he was seeing: restaurants for food he’d never heard of before, billboards for devices that seemed impossible, women’s lingerie stores with giant glass windows advertising their wares front and center, hotels for your pet and fancy chocolate shops and coffee shops on every corner.  He tried not to stare, but it was impossible, especially when he passed a color television the size of a billboard and saw a person with bright pink hair and what looked like a spiky dog collar. After a while, though, the strangeness of the city became exhausting, and he could feel his shoulders growing tight with the feeling of being exposed and vulnerable. 

But as he hurried home to the bland safety of the apartment, he realized he was being followed.  The awareness dawned on him gradually, but the farther he walked the more certain of it he was; the back of his neck was feeling hot and his hands were starting to twitch without the reassuring weight of a weapon in them.  Without thinking, he stepped inside a bar, smiled politely at a waitress who smiled politely in return, then walked right through the building, past the kitchen and the bathrooms and out the back into an alley full of trash cans and delivery trucks.  Glancing up, he saw that buildings still had fire escapes, so with a jump he reached the bottom rung of one and pulled himself up. On the roof he went to the front of the building and crouched to look over the ledge to see if he could spot the tails; after a few minutes he tagged four people who were doing a poor job of looking casual as they watched the front door of the bar he’d gone into.  All four were tall, burly looking men who had short, buzz-cut hair and were almost certainly armed.  _ Police? _ Bucky wondered with a frown. 

**_Hydra,_ ** a gravelly voice said grimly, right in his ear. 

Bucky jumped and and spun around, searching for the speaker, but he was still alone on the roof. Frowning, he studied the men again, wondering why Hydra had come to mind; maybe because of what he'd read in the newspapers.  Ducking down behind the low wall at the edge of the roof, he fumbled for one of the newspapers that were stilled tucked under his arm, flipping through the one that had mentioned Hydra in its headline.

_ “Previously classified intelligence documents that appear to have been leaked to the press reveal that Hydra, the World War II boogeyman, has been steadily infiltrating America’s security infrastructure for decades.  This plot was revealed to the world on Wednesday when Captain America, who was recently rediscovered after decades of being missing, presumed dead, crashed three of SHIELD’s newest helicarriers into the Potomac river, destroying SHIELD headquarters and flooding the low-lying portions of the city.  Two days prior, Captain America was involved in a gunfight with mysterious assailants, now assumed to be Hydra, that left five people dead and fourteen injured. It is thought that this attack is linked to the assassination of SHIELD Director Nicholas Fury.”  _ There was more to the article, but Bucky’s eyes were drawn to the pictures next to these words; one was a portrait of a grim faced, bald black man with one eye who felt familiar, and the other was a blurry picture of Bucky himself.

“Fuck.”  Bucky stared at the picture; he was wearing a mask and goggles, so the likelihood than anyone else would recognize him was small, but Bucky had been wearing that uniform, still had that hair and the eerie black hand.  “I’m Hydra,” he said, trying it on for size, but he couldn’t even say it without want to vomit; everything in him violently rejected the idea of working for Hydra, even if he couldn’t remember why. “Something else is going on,” he muttered, folding the newspaper and put it back under his arm with the rest.  He started to get to his feet and cross the roof when he heard the unmistakable noise of someone climbing the fire escape.

He dropped the newspapers and drew his pistol.  There was nothing to take cover behind, so he braced himself and exhaled slowly, forcing his muscles to relax as his focus narrowed and senses stretched.  He saw a head pop over the lip of the roof and fired, but he knew he missed. “Asset located,” he heard the man say, followed by the hissing crackle of a radio.

**_Run,_ ** that strange gravely voice said, and Bucky saw too much wisdom in that advice to worry too much about the source of it just yet, but as he turned he realized he was surrounded. He dropped the weapon and put his hands up, calculating his odds of reaching the edge of the roof before someone-


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky let out a pained grunt as he hit the rooftop and rolled, the gravel digging into his skin through his clothes.  He shook his head, ears ringing as the air still seemed to be vibrating with the echo of a loud noise. As he came to his feet he saw that two men were approaching him holding the strangest looking weapons he’d ever seen.  A memory of men disappearing in flashes of blue light from a strange looking gun made Bucky leap sideways, pulling a knife from his boot as he rolled. As soon as he was back on his feet he threw it, and one of the men staggered and fell to his knees, hand going up to stem the blood streaming from his neck.  Bucky had no idea where his pistol was, so when the remaining man dropped his weapon and drew his rifle, Bucky vaulted over the edge of the roof without hesitation. As soon as he saw the ground several stories below, he instinctively grabbed for something to slow his fall; it wasn’t until he was halfway to the ground that he realized he’d been digging the fingers of his black hand into the brick of the building and had gouged grooves in it for a solid twenty feet.  Surprise made him jerk his hand back, which made him start falling again, so he instinctively reached out for the fire escape even though it was a good five feet away. But his arm stretched, like a rubber band or pulled taffy, and he reached it, using his momentum to swing himself down into the alley. He stumbled a bit as his feet hit the pavement, knocking over a trash can as he tried to right himself.

“What the fuck,” he whispered fervently under his breath, daring one more glance backwards at the building he’d just jumped from as he sprinted away, ignoring the curses he was getting from the pedestrians as he darted around them. When he was back at the apartment he slammed the door shut and locked the entirely inadequate deadbolt behind him, then he stared at his hand with horror.

“What am I?” he whispered, because there was no way he could pretend that this was a normal arm that just happened to be covered in weird black stuff. It  _ was  _ weird black stuff, stuff that could do things no human could do.

**_I am Venom._ **

Bucky jerked so hard in surprise that his elbow went through the wall. "Who the hell just said that?" he demanded, stalking through the apartment. 

**_I did._ **

He stopped dead in his tracks when he realized that no matter where he was, the voice always sounded like it was coming from the same place. “I’m crazy,” he said with dawning realization, feeling almost relieved.  Of course, everything made sense now. “I’m hearing voices. All of this is one big hallucination-”

**_You’re not hearing voices,_ ** the voice said impatiently.  **_You’re hearing a voice. My voice. You're hearing me.  I am Venom, and we are the Winter Soldier._ **

Bucky blinked and thought about that for a while. “Am I supposed to believe the voice in my head when it tells me I’m not crazy?” he asked the empty apartment. 

**_How about when it tells you you’re an idiot?_ **

Bucky made his way to the couch and sat down heavily, resting his head in his hands and staring down at his feet. "Why is this happening to me?" he whispered. "What in the hell is going on?"

**_Hydra is trying to recapture us,_ ** the voice said.   **_That's why they were following us, why they were on the roof._ **

"I gotta tell you, bud," Bucky said, sounding a little hysterical even to his own ears, "that the men attacking us are the least confusing part of this situation!" He realized he was shouting and took a deep breath. He rubbed his temples and took deep breaths, trying to stay calm.  "What do you mean, 'us'?"

**_Me and you_ ** , the voice said slowly, like he was starting to suspect that Bucky was stupid.  **_Us._ **

"Are you...Are you inside my head?" Bucky asked, still desperately trying not to lose his shit.  

**_Yes_ ** .  **_Sort of.  I’m inside all of you._ **

"Can you... _ not _ be inside me?"

**_No._ **  Under his shirt, he felt a weird ripple on his skin, like his muscles were twitching, and then an inky black head emerged from the collar of his shirt, with giant, pupil-less milky-white eyes and sharp needle-like teeth.   **_"I am-"_ **

"Fuck!"  Bucky tried to scramble away from the terrifying face but of course it followed him, hissing with displeasure. "What the shit-"

**_"Calm down,"_ **  the head said irritably. Bucky froze in terror, mesmerized by the sharp teeth and snake-like tongue only a foot from his face.  **_"Listen to me. I can't_ ** **not** **_be inside you. I can't live on this planet without a host."_ **

"A host," Bucky repeated weakly. It was hard to focus on the creature’s words when its skin rippled like that, oily and sometimes iridescent when the light hit it the right way.

**_"You are my host.  I live inside you, and keep you strong and fast and alive.  You let me live inside you, and keep me strong and fast and alive.”_ **

“You…live inside me.” Bucky turned that over in his head. “I think I need to lie down,” he said finally. The head withdrew as Bucky slid sideways to lay down, turning onto his back to stare at the ceiling.

**_How long are you going to lay here?_ ** The voice asked after a while, when Bucky didn't move or speak for almost an hour.  

"Is this you?" Bucky said instead of answering, lifting his arm and studying the inky blackness with renewed interest.

**_Yes_ ** . 

Bucky scowled as a thought occurred to him. “Wait, are you the reason I keep blacking out and waking up somewhere else?”

**_Yes_ ** .

“Have you been here the whole time? Just fucking hanging out in my head while I tried to figure out what was going on?”

**I** **_have, but_ ** **you** **_haven’t._ **

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Bucky demanded, then was glad he was laying down when the voice offered a flurry of memories of running and climbing and fighting, the strange black hand stopping bullets in midair and sharpening into talons and even stretching impossibly long into a tentacle to reach someone far away and throw them through a building.  Through them all, there was only a sense of driving purpose, a single-minded will as if the memory was made by someone who had no thought of anything but the task at hand. Then the memory flipped to an alien viewpoint of a memory Bucky had his own version of, wandering around the city trying not to freak out at everything he didn’t recognize; this time, instead of the singular feeling of grim determination, there was a stream of endless chatter like a radio running in the background. Those were his thoughts, Bucky realized.  The...thing, the voice, had been listening to his thoughts this whole time.

**_You._ ** Radio-memory.  **_Not you._ ** Murder-memory.  **_You_ ** . Radio-memory again, this time when they were in the shower and trying to figure out how it worked.  **_Not y-_ **

“I get it, I get it, thanks.”  Bucky rubbed his eyes and sighed, trying to gather his thoughts. “Is there anything you can tell me about…me? You? Us?”

**_I don’t know much about you,_ ** the voice said, and maybe Bucky was imagining it but he sounded almost apologetic.   **_My ship crashed here almost seventy-five years ago-_ **

“What do you mean, your ship crashed? Are you an  _ alien? _ ”

The voice was silent, but the feeling of “you fucking idiot” was so strong that Bucky cringed at himself.   **_My team was discovered by Hydra after the crash,_ ** it continued.   **_I’ve been with them ever since._ **

“So we  _ were  _ part of Hydra,” Bucky said with a sick sense of dread and shame. He rolled over to hide his face against the back of the chair, stomach roiling as he remembered the look on Steve's face.  The one article he’d had a chance to read had said that Captain America -  _ Steve  _ \- had almost died trying to stop Hydra. Maybe that’s why he had looked so surprised to see Bucky. Maybe – maybe they weren’t even friends anymore.  Maybe they were enemies, and that’s why Steve looked so... _ betrayed. _  “Where we trying to kill Steve?”

**_Among others, yes,_ ** the voice said after a moment of hesitation.   **_He was our mission._ **

Bucky closed his eyes and tried to curl up into a ball on the narrow couch. “I think you should probably go ahead tell me the rest.”

**_One of us died before Hydra realized that we can’t live on this planet without a host. At first, there were volunteers._ ** Bucky got an image of stern-looking young men with stiff-armed salutes, bodies shaking and eyes wild as they tried to force their faces to be blank.   **_When those died, there were less…enthusiastic recruits._ ** In this memory, Bucky could feel screams like an unpleasant pressure on his skin and he felt an overwhelming desire to make the noise stop.  **_When my hosts fight me, though, they die faster._ **

“They  _ die? _ ”

**_Strong, willing hosts don’t die,_ ** the voice said quickly, sounding defensive.   **_Once they discovered that, Hydra found a way to make them stop fighting._ **

“How?”

**_I don’t know,_ ** it admitted.  **_I was never with you when it happened._ ** It sent him a memory: three soldiers a safe distance away, pointing those strange weapons from the rooftop at them.  In the memory Bucky could feel fear and loathing of them; as it climbed out of Bucky’s body and into a waiting airless container, the image of the soldiers dissolved into a strange sense memory that Bucky couldn’t understand.  **_Those weapons are sound cannons,_ ** the voice explained.  **_Sound hurts me.  They killed the rest of my team trying to discover our strengths and weaknesses, then used them to control me. Us._ **

Bucky was silent again for a while.  “So, you don’t know anything about me?” Bucky said, disappointed. 

**_Only who you were when we were together. Not…who you were before._ **

“And you can’t help me regain my memories?”

**_No._ **

“Right.  Okay.” Bucky rubbed his eyes and suddenly realized he was exhausted.  “You know, I think I’m just going to…sleep,” he said, sitting up so he could drag himself to the bedroom. “It has been a hell of a day.”


	5. Chapter 5

_ “Hang on!” Steve said, barely audible over a rattling roar that filled the air. “Grab my hand!”  It was cold, so cold, the wind was like ice. He could barely feel his hands as he held onto the frozen metal bar, but he still tried to shuffle closer to the outstretched hand and the safety it represented. _

_ Then there was a sharp crack and a jerk, and suddenly Bucky was a foot farther away than he was before.  “No!” Steve shouted, then the metal bar gave way completely. _

Bucky woke up with a sharp inhale, dizzy and disoriented for a moment as he stared up at the blank ceiling of the apartment and not the rapidly dwindling figure of Steve aboard a train that was racing away from him.   He sat up and concentrated on breathing, trying to slow his racing heart. It was dark outside, except for the yellow-orange glow of street lights, and the omnipresent sound of vehicles was all but gone. It was so late that it had become early, then.  He ran his hands through his hair, sighed, and stood up to get something to drink. 

“I need to find out who I am,” Bucky said to the dark kitchen.  He could feel the voice stirring in his mind, could sense that it was awake.

**_Really?_ ** it asked, sounding genuinely curious.   **_Why does that matter?_ **

"It matters to me," Bucky said, crumbling the bottle of water and throwing it away with unnecessary force.  "You remember who you are and where you came from, but I don't." He went to the bathroom to stare at his unfamiliar face in the splintered remnants of the mirror.  "All I got is a handful of memories that don't make any goddamn sense and I'm sick of it."

**_What we should do is destroy Hydra before they can capture us again._ ** There were strong memories of pain and rage, but Bucky couldn't tell if they were his or the voice's, but it didn't matter. 

“Hydra can go fuck itself,” Bucky spat.  “I want to know who I am!”

**_Fine,_ ** the voice said sulkily.  **_How?_ **

"I don't know." Bucky ran a hand over his jaw, frowning at the stubble there.  For lack of anything better to do, he rummaged around through the drawers and cabinets for a razor, finding a whole bag of cheap, flimsy looking ones under the sink.  "Get more newspapers, I guess," he said as he ran the disposable safety razor over his jaw, wishing all of his newspapers weren’t scattered all over a random rooftop several blocks away.  “They seemed to know a lot about what was going on in Hydra and with Steve, maybe they’d know something about me.” 

**_You could check the internet_ ** , the voice said. 

Bucky put the razor down and rinsed and dried his face before staring into his own eyes like he could see the alien inside them. “What.  In the  _ hell _ . Is the internet.” 

***

Bucky had to wait for another couple of hours for the sun to come up and people to start being out on the sidewalk, then it took an hour and a half and asking half a dozen people for help, but finally he was sitting at a ‘computer’ looking at the ‘internet.’ “This is insane,” Bucky said to himself, half in awe, as he pecked out ‘bucky steve train’ on the keyboard into the section where the librarian said he could search for things on the internet.

His fledgling sense of optimism guttered and died when the screen filled with results; 6,950,000 of them, according to what popped up on the computer. “’James Buchanan Barnes, his life and tragic death, a retrospective,’” Bucky read off the screen, then sat back in his chair.  “James Buchanan Barnes,” he said again. “That’s my name.” It felt right, too, like stepping into well-fitting clothes. He clicked on the article and quickly skimmed it with a frown of concentration. It said that he’d died on a top secret mission in the Alps, which explained the dream but didn’t explain what he was doing here in 2014 when he should have been dead seventy years ago.  He hit backspace until the search field was empty, then typed, “Steve Rogers captain America,” and boy, did that produce some results. He spent as much time as he dared there, reading about Steve and his time frozen under the ice and then more  _ space aliens- _

“You don’t look like that, do you?” he said under his breath, making a face at the terrifying, six-armed alien on the screen.

**_No_ ** , the voice said, sounding offended.  **_I am Klyntaar, not Chitauri._ ** As if that explained everything.  Bucky scrolled past the part about the aliens and stopped when he saw more information about Hydra.  He read headline after headline describing their roots in the Nazi party and their activity during World War II, touching the screen when he saw photos of himself standing next to Steve and a bunch of other people who looked familiar. There was so much to read, pages and pages of what had happened during the war, what had happened since then, and Bucky wanted to sit there and read them all.  But he’d already been here too long; the back of his neck was starting to itch, and people were giving him funny looks as he kept glancing around and twitching when someone walked behind him. So he hit the “x” at the corner of the screen like the librarian had shown him, then shoved away from the desk.

“We need money,” Bucky said with frustration as they went back outside.  “We can’t stay at that library all day, we will be sitting ducks if Hydra comes looking for us again.  That one lady said that you can use internet on phones now, and we could get a phone if we had money.”

**_What about the safe? Safe houses always have supplies, that’s why I brought us here._ ** The voice sent him a memory of sitting on a couch, watching his support team dress their wounds and reload their weapons and pile stacks of cash into a duffel bag.

The fact that the apartment was a safe house explained a lot, but really underscored the fact that they shouldn’t stay there for much longer, especially if Hydra already knew they were here. "But I don't have the combination to the safe," Bucky muttered.  "I tried." 

Suddenly Bucky got the fucking bizarre sensation of someone trying to roll his eyes.  **_Perhaps I'll have better luck,_ ** the voice said sarcastically, and this time Bucky rolled his own eyes.

"Well, if someone had spoken up earlier," he grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets and walking faster when he realized that he was getting strange looks from other pedestrians.  When they got home Bucky watched in fascination as the fingers on his black hand lengthened and sharpened, then he drove them through the hardened steel of the safe like it was cardboard and ripped the door right off.  Bucky’s eyes widened when he saw the contents of the safe. “Holy shit, we should have done this first,” he breathed. One half of the safe was piled high with stacks of green bills and the other with file folders and ID cards and what looked like passports. Bucky flipped through the passports and IDs and saw that none of them had pictures on them, just names and addresses and other presumably fake information.  “Huh,” he said thoughtfully, and set them to the side to examine later. 

The money, of course, was going to be useful as soon as he figured out a way to carry around that much cash, but for now Bucky set it to the side and pulled out the file folders and notebooks.  On top was a plastic card about the size of Bucky’s hand that said  _ EMERGENCY PROCEDURES-UNCONTROLLED ASSET _ .  His stomach swooped sickeningly when he realized that it was a list of ways to disable, hurt, or kill them. The sound cannon was on there under "parasite," right above fire, and under "host" the word  _ sputnik  _ was listed; next it, the paper explained that it said would “immediately disable the host and force the asset to emerge, if they are still bonded.”  It also said "engage memory wipe procedures if host becomes agitated or disobedient," and at the very bottom, under "Absolute Last Resort," it said “if the asset and its host do not succumb to previous countermeasures, white phosphorus has been proven to be the most effective method of destruction for the alien parasite.” 

**_PARASITE?!_ ** The voice roared, and Bucky’s left hand tightened, crumpling the piece of plastic.  Bucky distantly felt the voice’s ire, but he was too busy feeling queasy. Hydra didn’t even see him as a  _ person _ , just a fucking vehicle for their pet alien. They’d taken his memories, erased him from his own body and programmed an off switch into his brain just in case he started to develop any pesky free will.   _ They killed the rest of my team, _ the voice had said, and now Bucky knew how at least one of them had died.  He’d seen white phosphorus burns before, in the war; people died screaming as the fire burned through them like it was alive as it devoured them all the way to the bone.  It was a horrible, evil way to die, and the kindest thing anyone could do would be to put a bullet in their brain as fast as possible. In the back of the safe there was a box of ammunition and sure enough, when Bucky pulled them out it was white phosphorus shells, meant for a shotgun so they would scatter in as wide a blast radius as possible.  

Under the nausea a rage was building, and as Bucky looked at the box in his hand he realized his hand was shaking, making the shells rattle inside. His breathing was coming fast and shallow and a scream was building in his throat, then suddenly it all drained away like water from a sieve.

“What-“

**_You were becoming agitated,_ ** the voice said.

Then Bucky got angry all over again.  “Don’t fucking  _ manage  _ me,” he growled, throwing the box of shells across the room as he surged to his feet. “No one else gets to – to take shit from me.  My  _ thoughts _ , my  _ memories _ , my whole fucking  _ life _ !” Bucky picked up the safe and threw it through a wall and it embedded itself in the tile wall of the shower  “My arm,” he added, looking down at his inky black hand. “I want to see it. I want to see my own arm.” When the alien hesitated, he shouted, “ _ Go away!” _ And then the arm dissolved, the darkness crawling up and up and up into his shoulder until it was gone.

Bucky staggered and braced himself on the destroyed remnants of the wall as he stared down at the stump of his arm. There was maybe only a hand-span of it left, cut off right below the curve of muscle at his shoulder; the skin the stump was long since healed, shiny and silver with age.  He shivered at the sudden memory of the high, grating buzz of a bone saw and the coppery smell of blood and barely made it to the bathroom before he threw up. He sat there for a while, hunched over the toilet, until he was sure that he wasn’t going to throw up again, then he rinsed his mouth out and went to sit on the bed.  "Hydra doesn't want me," he said after a while. "They want you. You're the asset." The voice didn't answer. "If you..." he started, and felt ashamed for his thoughts. But this wasn't fair, he didn't ask for this, so he forced himself to say, "You should find another host. They won't want me without you, and if they don't know who your new host is, they won't be able to find you."  He wanted to find Steve but blanched at the idea of trying to explain the alien, of trying to make a new life with that thing riding around inside of him. 

The voice never answered, so after a few minutes he grabbed the comforter with one hand and wrapped it around himself as he curled into a ball in the middle of the bed, then stared into the dim shadows of the room until he fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

_ Bucky knew this was another nightmare, but he couldn’t force himself to wake up.  Every time he did, he awoke to a new nightmare; breaking free from the frozen, claustrophobic prison found himself bound to a chair as an ominous, sparking crown was lowered onto his head.  Someone was droning something at the edge of his hearing, words that he could almost understand but was afraid to, because when the voice stopped talking – _

**_WAKE UP_ **

_ He was on the bridge again, watching Steve touch the wound in his stomach, hand coming away bloody.  He was screaming and trying to race towards him, to catch him as he collapsed to the pavement, but he couldn’t move, he was still in the prison- _

_ -still in the chair- _

**_BUCKY GODDAMMIT WAKE UP HYDRA IS HERE_ **

This time Bucky’s eyes opened for real, leaving him blinking at the ceiling for a split second before he was rolling over out of bed away from the window.  “How much time do we have?” he whispered, relieved but also a little unsettled to see inky blackness flowing out of the stump of his arm, covering his shoulder and knotting in on itself until it solidified into an arm and a hand. He grabbed the pistols and knives he’d stashed next to the bed days ago and got to his feet.

**_Less than a minute. They are coming from the roof._ ** Even as it said that, Bucky could hear the faintest hushed zips of several people coming down a rappel line outside his window.  

“We should run,” Bucky said, mentally reviewing the layout of the building as his hands tightened on his weapons.  “If we go out the window-”

**_No running! We kill them._ **

Ice water filled Bucky’s veins at the thought. “Have you forgotten that they know all of our weaknesses?” Bucky hissed.  “Besides, even if we  _ were  _ going to fight them, we can’t let them attack us here! There are a bunch of innocent people living in this building.  If bullets start flying someone’s going to get hurt.” The men waiting outside the window seemed to be waiting for some kind of signal, so Bucky combat crouched to the closet to buy some time once they came in through the windows.

**_Innocent…people,_ ** the voice repeated as if it understood the words separately but not together.  **_And that’s…bad?_ **

“Yes!”

**_Hydra never cared about that. They called it ‘collateral damage.’_ **

“Yeah, and we’ve established that they are bad guys,” Bucky said. “We are  _ good guys _ , so we care about  _ innocent people.” _

**_Good guys._ ** The voice sounded thoughtful.  **_Yes. Heroes even._ **

“Sure, heroes.”  Bucky could hear the soft sounds of people talking into radios outside the window and realized his flesh hand was starting to sweat.  “So about these-”

**_Not just heroes. Superheroes._ **

“Super- where in the hell did you get  _ that  _ from?”

The voice sent him a memory of a conversation between their support team/prison guards:  _ “What do these guys think, that they are some sort of fuckin’ superheroes or something?” One of them sneered, showing his phone to the guard sitting next to them.  On the screen, they read “Iron Man Defeats the Mandarin, Saves POTUS.” The other soldier laughed and said, “I can’t wait until Project Insight blows all of them away.” _

“Iron Man,” Bucky said out loud. “Mandarin.” He groaned and banged his head against the wall of the closet. “Why is there so. Much. I don’t.  _ Know?” _  He took a deep breath and determinedly shoved those thoughts away.  “We will talk about that later, what are we going to do right  _ now? _ ”

**_Up._ **

Bucky looked up automatically before he realized what the voice meant. “Right, good idea.”  He reached up and tossed all of the clothes from the rack on the floor so he could access the ceiling.  He grabbed the shelf and pulled himself up on it, praying the flimsy wire contraption would hold, and felt a tingly, numb sensation spreading from his shoulder across his chest. “What are you-”

**_Trust me._ **  Even in the dark of the closet he could see the darkness spreading, oozing from his skin through his shirt to cover his entire body.  Bucky tried not to look at it or think about it as “upstairs” was achieved by the simple dint of punching a hole through the ceiling and crawling through it like a giant lizard, into an empty room that was a mirror of the one below.   Outside the window, Bucky could see the black lines of the rappelling ropes backlit by the ambient light of the city. He reached for his knife but all of his gear was covered by the alien goo; instead, he watched his – their? – fingers sharpen into razorlike claws.  

He could feel an ugly grin cross his face as he reached out the window and sliced through the ropes, remembering “engage memory wipe procedures” as he listened to the screams of three people as they plummeted seven stories to the ground below. Their noise alerted the agents waiting at the windows on the other side of the building, and Bucky could hear them talking urgently into their radio as they tried to get a fix on their position.

**_Up,_ ** the voice said again, so he crawled out the window, clawed hands and feet digging into the brick of the building as he climbed up to the roof where he could hear the racing heartbeats and smell the stink of fear coming from the agents there.   **_Allow me,_ ** the voice said smugly, and Bucky felt the tingling sensation start anew, traveling up his neck and scalp.

He gritted his teeth against the panicked scream trying to bubble out of his throat as the slimy, inky blackness covered his face, suffocating him, trapping him in the claustrophobic darkness. Then, like flipping a switch, their senses lit up: they could see the heat coming off the men on the roof, hear the noises coming from inside the apartments on the other side of the brick walls, taste the mingled food, gasoline, and humanity that made up the smell of New York City.  They felt strong, fast, invincible; their heart was racing with adrenaline and suddenly they couldn’t  _ wait _ to reach the men waiting for them on the rooftop.

As they continued up the side of the building, one of the agents made the rash decision to lean over the edge of the building to get a visual on them.  With a rasping laugh, they buried their claws into his chest and shoulder and bit the man’s head off, shredding the helmet and skull underneath with their razor sharp teeth.  As they climbed over the edge of the roof, they threw the headless body at the other agents and leapt on the one closest to them; bullets impacted harmlessly on their skin as they took the rifle away from him and bent it in half. The other agent was crawling towards the sound cannon lying a few feet away, so they grabbed one man by the legs and clubbed him against the other until they both stopped moving.

_ “ _ **_I am_ ** **not** **_a parasite,_ ** ” they growled, crushing the sound cannons beneath their foot before crawling back down the window to find the men that had invaded their home. As they crouched and prepared to throw themselves through one of the windows, Bucky struggled through the alien’s giddy, violent joy to make them stop, one hand already raised.

_ They’ll be guarding the windows with those cannons, _ Bucky explained, and lowered their hand, backing slowly away from the window.  _ Or worse.  Let me do this part. _ They climbed back through the window of the empty apartment above the safe house, and the alien reluctantly withdrew back into Bucky’s skin, darkness seeping away until only the arm was left.  Bucky lowered himself silently through the hole they’d made in the closet and saw that he had been right; all the Hydra agents were holding positions near the windows of the apartment, lying in wait for them to come back in.

The alien bloodlust was still an urgent thrill under his skin, making him want to leap and rend and bite, but Bucky forced himself to go slow as he approached, keeping low as he drew his knife.  The men were silent, barely breathing, weapons steady as they pointed towards the windows; through the broken glass, Bucky could hear the commotion down below as people found the bodies and shouted for help.

“ **_You should have left us alone,_ ** ” he growled in one agent’s ear, then Bucky jerked the man’s head back and slit his throat before he could cry out then kicked the body into the other man. The agent staggered, but didn’t fall down, and Bucky had to endure a few agonizing seconds of the sound cannon before he kicked it out of the man’s hands. As the agent tried to draw his pistol, Bucky grabbed his wrist and wrenched his hand with the pistol up and under the man’s chin.  He fired twice and let the body fall limply to the floor. 

He could hear the agents in the other room shouting and knew they were taking positions next to the door. Dashing over the bed, he dove through the hole in the wall to the bathroom, then vaulted off the bathroom counter.  Covering his head with his arms, he broke through the wall and into the living room, barreling into one of the agents there. Twisting as they fell, Bucky got his hands on the webbing of the agent’s helmet and jerked sharply, landing in a roll as the man collapsed.  As the last two Hydra shitbirds turned on him, an unfamiliar instinct made him jump for the ceiling, dark claws emerging from his fingers to grip the ceiling as he gathered himself. He pushed off the ceiling to dive at them, thrusting the dagger-like talons on his hands through their bullet-proof vests and into their chests and pinning them to the floor.

The claws retracted as Bucky stood, barely breathing hard.  He turned his head, listening for any sounds of alarm coming from the other people in the building; behind him, he heard a sharp cry that was cut off suddenly.  Turning, he saw an agent he’d missed fall to the floor and a thick, ropy tentacle retracting into his back.  **_No collateral damage,_ ** the voice said with satisfaction.

“You’re right,” Bucky said with surprise. “Uh, thanks. I mean, good work.”

**_Now let’s rip their heads off and pile the bodies in the corner._ **

Bucky blanched and made a face. “Christ, why?”

**_Pile of bodies, pile of heads. It sends a message._ **

“Just the dead bodies aren’t enough? I mean, we  _ ate  _ a guy’s  _ head. _ ”  The memory of which Bucky wasn't planning on ever thinking of again.

**_No!_** **_Not enough._** Bucky was treated to memories of being burned and suffocated and subject to increasingly loud, agonizing noises, feeling like his very cells were going to be vibrated apart, before he raised his hands in surrender.

“Okay, okay. We’ll leave a message.”

***

When the authorities finally arrived, the first people in the door went pale and almost threw up.  On the wall of the living room, over the couch, over the bodies that still laying in sticky pools of drying blood, was Hydra’s skull-headed octopus drawn in blood with a giant line clawed through it, slicing the image in half. Underneath, also in blood, was written  _ GO TO HELL, HYDRA.  _

***

_ I need to get the hell away from here _ , Bucky thought as he dropped back down to street level, hitching the duffle bag full of cash, blank IDs, and Hydra files further onto his shoulder.  There must have been half a dozen police cars at the apartment building, sirens and lights echoing through the artificial canyon walls of the city. He was starting to feel jittery and tired now that the fight was over, crashing from the adrenaline rush.  Without the safety of an apartment to retreat to, he felt terrifyingly vulnerable.

**_We’re not being followed,_ ** the voice said after he glanced over his shoulder for the fifth time in a single city block.   **_I’d warn you._ **

“So what are we going to do now?” Bucky muttered under his breath, trying to walk as quickly as possible without looking suspicious. 

**_We should destroy Hydra before they can capture us again.  This was just their first attempt. They won’t stop until we are dead or under their control._ **

“No fucking way," Bucky snapped.  “I already told you, I just want to get as far from Hydra as possible and get my life back.   _ You _ go after Hydra since they want you so badly.”

**_I need a host. You are the perfect host._ **

“Well, bully for me. But I don’t want to be your host. Find someone else.”

Suddenly Bucky stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.  He strained to move but his limbs wouldn’t answer.  **_You really think they will leave you alone if I am gone?_ ** The voice said scornfully.  **_You know what they will do to you if they find you.  Your body remembers; you dreamed about it._ **

_ The chair _ . Bucky clenched his jaw against the surge of sick dread, remembering the terror he'd felt in his dream.   _ Engage memory wipe procedures, _ the piece of paper had said, and somehow he knew that's what the chair was for.  

**_If they find you and I’m not with you, you won’t be_ ** **safe** **_.  You’ll just be alone._ ** The grip keeping his body still eased, and Bucky started walking again.  He wanted to protest; every part of him wanted to protest, wanted to lash out at the unfairness of it all. But he knew the voice was right.

“Fine,” he gritted out. “We destroy Hydra,  _ then  _ I get my body back.”

**_Fine_ ** . The voice sounded just as sullen.

“How are we going to do it? Do you have a plan?”

**_No._ **

“Any ideas?”

**_Wait for them to find us, then kill them._ **

Christ, Bucky wasn’t a five-star military strategist but even he knew that trying to destroy an organization like Hydra one squad at a time wasn’t going to work.  Even during the war when he and Steve had had their own strike team and the entire US army for backup it had taken them years to-

This time when Bucky stopped on the sidewalk it was out of surprise. “I remembered something,” he said with awe. Chasing the memory still gave him a headache, but he could actually close his eyes and picture it; a bunch of men in military uniforms, standing around a long table with a map on it, looking grim.  Steve was leaning over, marking locations on the map, and said,  _ we have to take the fight to them _ , and Bucky found the words coming out of his mouth. 

**_Yessss. That's much better._ **

“But how?”  Bucky started walking again, well aware that if anyone was watching him he probably looked crazy. The voice was quiet, and Bucky got the idea that planning was not exactly its forte.  He sighed. “Maybe something in the files will give us something.”

**_Internet,_ ** the voice said again.  **_Human hive mind._ **

“I don’t think the  _ internet _ is a – a hive mind,” Bucky argued, but then he remembered the line  _ previously classified intelligence documents were leaked to the press _ and realized the voice might have a point.  It wasn’t much of a lead, because everyone would probably be looking at them for leads on Hydra. And, he reflected, if Hydra was smart, they’d be fleeing Hydra bases like rats from a sinking ship right now. But it was a start, and maybe it would make him remember something else.  “Let’s get out of this town, find a place to stay, then we’ll figure it out,” Bucky said, footsteps slowing as he saw a sign for Union Station. He’d never heard of it before, but the “station” part sounded promising.

It was still ridiculously early in the morning so Bucky settled himself in on a bench next to the ticket teller for the train, a couple of free newspapers under his arm to keep him occupied until the station opened. The memory of Steve made him, well, remember Steve, and Bucky realized that he was probably still here in DC, dealing with the fallout from Hydra's attack.  “Steve would know how to find Hydra,” Bucky muttered to the voice as he picked up the first newspaper from the stack. “We should find Steve and…” Bucky’s voice died when he read the headline.

_ CAP STILL IN CRITICAL CONDITION. Following the almost devastating attack in DC, official sources say that Captain Steve Rogers, better known as Captain America, is still hospitalized from wounds he received in the fight to destroy the three next-generation helicarriers that the terrorist group Hydra had planned to use to assassinate millions across the planet. _

“Shit.” Bucky’s heart sank and he lowered the paper.  The need to see Steve was even stronger now that he knew that Steve was lying in a hospital bed somewhere, hurting, but he knew it was impossible. He could find some way to explain his parasite-

**_I’m not a parasite! I’m a symbiote!_ **

Bucky jumped. “Sorry, sorry, jeez,” he said.  In any event, going to Steve was out, it was way too dangerous. He sighed, folding the paper and setting it to the side so he could rest his head in his hands, feeling scared and overwhelmed and alone.

**_But you’re not alone._ **

“Are you  _ always _ reading my thoughts?” Bucky complained. “Can’t a man freak out in the privacy of his own head?”

**_Our head,_ ** the voice said.  

The alien slithered out of Bucky’s sleeve, tendrils of ink coiling around each other until its head appeared again with the same teardrop shaped, milky white eyes and mouthful of fangs. “ **_You and I were the greatest warrior this world had ever seen,”_ ** it growled.  **_“We can be again, if you will stop being a whining, cringing infant long enough to pull your weight.”_ **

Bucky gaped, speechless. He stared at the alien head long enough that his own hand came up and smacked him on the cheek with a painful sting. “Ow, shit, stop. Okay.” The black hand lowered as Bucky ran the other over his face. “Fine. I’m in, okay? We’ll stop Hydra and we’ll be heroes and then we will figure out the whole host/para- I mean,  _ symbiote, _ ” he said hastily when the alien’s lips curled into an angry snarl, “thing after that. Deal?”

**_"Deal,_ ** ” it said.   **_“Also, my name is Venom. Not ‘the alien,’ not ‘the voice.’ Venom._ ** ”

Bucky looked away guiltily as Venom withdrew back into his skin. “I’m sorry,” he said, fidgeting with the stack of newspapers beside him. “I didn’t mean to, um…Hurt your feelings, I guess. I’m still just trying to get used to…everything.”

**_You’re not the only one,_ ** Venom pointed out.   **_I’ve been held prisoner in a vacuum-sealed box for decades. This is new to me, too._ **

“True.” Bucky blew out a breath and stood, wandering over to the train schedule. “So how do you feel about New York?”   


	7. Chapter 7

“You know, back in my day,” Bucky said conversationally, “secret evil Nazi bases _looked_ like secret evil Nazi bases.”

 **_“What are secret evil Nazi bases supposed to look like?”_ ** Venom kept his eel-like head up to study the banal-looking office complex they were surveilling while Bucky ducked behind the construction berm that overlooked it.

“Dark, spooky, probably in a mountaintop castle,” Bucky answered, pulling out his phone and tagging the location as Venom slithered back into his skin. “At the very least, deep in the woods, not in an office park in the suburbs.”  Even after weeks of digging up and destroying Hydra holdouts just like this one, Bucky still couldn’t wrap his mind around Hydra agents driving minivans and getting drive-through coffee on their morning commutes.

**_We go in tonight?_ **

“Yeah.”  After a few, uh…well, there was really no other word for it but ‘fuckups,’ they had figured out a system – whenever they found a possible location for a new Hydra base, they watched it for a week to determine patterns and record the people who came and went, then they picked a night to infiltrate it and confirm that it was actually Hydra (Bucky winced at the memory of terrifying a building full of hapless insurance agents, not their best moment), then they would go in guns blazing (so to speak) the next day.  “Burgers okay for dinner?”

**_Rare._ **

“Medium rare, like we always do. But I’ll get a chocolate shake if you don’t sulk about it.”

**_Deal._ **

Back at the hotel, Bucky sat cross-legged on the bed and made his way through the paper bag full hamburgers as he went through the stack of intel they’d found on their most recent grab and dash; they’d hit up a last week safehouse because they had been running low on cash and ammo and now Bucky had to go through the reams and reams of contingency and fallback plans, contact lists, and the locations of a few other safe houses, all meant to keep a compromised team on the move until they could regroup with the rest of Hydra.  Sometimes he got lucky and an agent got sloppy with their opsec and gave away a bigger target; more than once he’d found a burner phone that had been used before and the agent didn’t bother to swap out the SIM card or erase his search history. That was how they’d found the address of this office complex today and an abandoned laboratory two months ago.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Venom put out a tendril and drag the remote closer, poking the channel button as he searched for something to watch while Bucky worked.  The TV flipped through commercials and infomercials and talk shows until Bucky heard a familiar voice for a split second. “Wait, go back,” he said, and Venom went back to what turned out to be a news channel.

“-revelations continue to stack up as Captain Steve Rogers testifies to Congress about SHIELD’s recent operations against suspected Hydra facilities. Viewers will remember that almost twenty percent of Congress was revealed to be  members of or affiliated with the terrorist organization, which has prompted new elections across America-” Bucky muted the announcer so he could study Steve, sitting straight backed and proud in his uniform across from a panel of people in suits. There was a woman sitting beside him, petite and red-haired, and Bucky liked her immediately because of the take no prisoners look in her eye when it was her turn to speak.  Steve, though, looked tired; not so much like the tired you get from bad sleep, but the sort of tired that makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning. Bucky knew that look though he couldn’t pin down the memory of how, and suddenly he missed Steve so much it he had to breath through the pain of it.

 **_You should go see him,_ ** Venom observed, not for the first time. **_It’s stupid to feel like this for no reason._ **

“When we’re done,” Bucky said. “Look at him.  Poor bastard’s got enough problems right now.”  Venom didn’t comment, but Bucky could feel his skepticism and felt guilty because Venom was right - there was always one more base, one more target, that kept him from going to find Steve.  Hydra was a convenient excuse, but the real reason was Bucky was scared, scared that they were too different and too much time had passed for them. Scared that he had done too much to be forgiven, or that he hadn’t killed enough Hydra agents to make up for it. If he went to find Steve and got a terribly polite and pained rejection, or if Steve was seeing someone else, like that intimidating red-head or the black man that he would occasionally turn and talk to, Bucky felt like he might lay down and not be able to get back up again.

**_Humans are ridiculous._ **

“I know, I know,” Bucky muttered, and changed the channel.  Venom made him drop the remote when they found a zombie movie, which were its favorite; it thought it was funny to bite a Hydra agent’s head off and then say “ **_braiiiiinnnnnsssss_ **” while the others frantically tried to kill them.  Glancing at the clock, Bucky said, “We’ll go recon after this movie ends, okay?” and went back to his paperwork when he felt Venom’s agreement.

 

Bucky crouched behind the construction berm as the headlights from the security patrol vehicle flashed over his head; he counted to ten, and then vaulted over the berm and leaped the fence as he sprinted for the main building before the other patrol vehicle came around.  In a patch of darkness created by a quirk of the architecture and landscaping, Bucky flexed his fingers and started climbing. He tried to avoid visible damage as much as possible without sacrificing speed; this place had a few more security guards than one would expect from a normal office complex and the last thing they needed was to be spotted and blow the whole operation.  Once on the roof, Bucky didn’t even bother with the access door, which was almost certainly rigged to the alarm system. Instead, he punched a hole in the wall of the stairwell that led to the access door, clawing broken bits of cinder block and plaster out of his way until he had a hole big enough to climb through.

The top floors were mostly executive suites, so it was slow going at first as Bucky searched each one for locked drawers and hidden safes.  In the CFO’s office, Bucky found the proof they were looking for; in a safe hidden in the floor under the desk, there was a laptop that had the financial spreadsheets for a raft of illegal Hydra operations, including the insurance payouts for agents that they had killed back in New York and property taxes on a host of safe houses.

“Jackpot,” Bucky said, taking photos of the screen before putting the laptop back where he found it.  He’d take it with him when he came back tomorrow so they wouldn’t spook the target too early. “We’ll recon the rest of the building and bounce. They’re having a monster movie marathon on AMC tonight.”

But as Bucky quickly paced through the rest of the building, around the third floor he started to get a bad feeling.  He stopped in the middle of a giant room full of cubicles and concentrated, trying to figure out what was off. He spun in a slow circle, frowning; the cubicles looked normal, full of the photos and knickknacks that came with someone sitting at a desk all day.  On the wall there was a full-size portrait of Johann Schmidt, which Bucky thought was a risky move, but since history remembered the man as the Red Skull instead of, well, a man, most people wouldn’t look twice at it. “The air conditioning,” Bucky said after a moment.  The air was starting to feel stale because the air conditioning had turned off. “Odd.” He hesitated for a few minutes before he continued, moving a little faster now; he supposed it wasn’t _too_ odd that a building would turn the AC off at night, but-

“Oh, now that’s _definitely_ not good,” Bucky said as metal shutters closed over the windows with a rattling clang. Venom immediately oozed out to cover them, senses stretching into the silence as they waited for the attack now that the trap was sprung.

They spun, feeling the floor vibrate as something heavy landed behind them. Standing there was another symbiote, but instead of their own sleek blackness, this one was a shuffling ruin with a slight silver sheen.   **_Riot._ ** It was larger than them, but huge sections of its skin looked charred black and dead, and twisting ropes of what looked like scars covered one of its eyes and part of its jaw. It was swaying and twitching, turning its head as if hearing something that they couldn’t. They felt an uncharacteristic stab of fear as they stared at the creature in front of them; Bucky was suddenly reminded of the tale of the golem, the shambling monster that relentlessly pursued its victims until death.

 _Is that what they were going to do to you?_ Buck thought, horrified.

 **_I didn't let it get that far,_ ** Venom answered. **_Riot was... more stubborn._ **

It turned its head as if finally registering their presence, and they took a step back at the madness in its narrowed, slit-like eyes. **_“Venom,_ ** ” it rumbled, voice like gravel. **_“Time to come home, Venom._ **”

 **_To hell with that,_ ** they thought in unison and fled. They dove at the metal shutters on the window, but before they could claw through them Riot grabbed them and threw them through two offices and a bathroom. Slipping slightly on the water pouring from broken pipes they punched through the ceiling and sprinted for a stairwell, making for the hole they'd made on the roof, only to slide to a stop, claws making gouges in the floor, as Riot burst through the floor in front of them.  This close, Bucky realized Riot was half-again as large as they were, hulking and brutish.

“ **_Why do you still work for_ ** **them?”** Venom growled, giving ground as Riot advanced on them. **_“Come with us and we can destroy them for what they did to us, to our team!”_ **

" **_Come home, Venom_ ** _,”_ Riot said again, and then his hands twisted and transformed into giant scythes, sweeping desks and cubicle walls out of the way. **_“Or die._ **”

They scuttled out of the way, barely dodging the scythes as they embedded themselves into the floor. _There’s a stairway on the other side,_ Bucky thought, and they ran for it. This time, they made it up two flights before they felt a clawed hand close around their leg and yank; even though they dug their talons into the cement wall, Riot pulled them away like they were an insect and threw them down the stairwell. They curled into a ball as they crashed through railings and bounced off stairs until they hit the bottom with a bone-jarring thump. Glancing up, they saw Riot dropping from floor to floor, studying them with its one good eye, head cocked.

 _It’s herding us right where it wants us,_ Bucky realized as they scrambled away, trying to find another escape route.  They could hear Riot following them, dragging its claws into the walls of the hallway, occasionally ripping the lights down and leaving darkness in its wake. _We’re going to have to fight._

He could feel Venom’s resistance to the idea, even as they slowed. **_It has always been the strongest of us,_ ** it argued. **_Which is how it could survive the white phosphorus.  It will eat us alive._ **  And to Bucky’s dismay, he realized Venom meant that literally.

 _I don’t think it will do that. Hydra wants us_ – _you, especially – alive._  Glancing around, they realized they were in some sort of maintenance corridor, tall and wide with cinderblock walls.  It wasn’t the best place to make a stand, but it wasn’t the worst. _Target its weaknesses,_ Bucky thought.  They’d already noticed that the charred places on Riot’s skin didn’t move with the rest of him, so maybe they would be more vulnerable to attack.

They leapt when Riot turned the corner, forming a long spike with one hand and driving it through the large patch of dead flesh right on its chest until it came out the other side.  Riot roared with pain and they punched it with as much strength as they could muster, driving it back and cracking the cinderblock. As Riot squirmed on the spike pinning it to the wall, they dug their claws into its jaws, trying to find a seam where they could peel it off its host.  They almost succeeded; they pulled Riot off enough that they could see human skin, dark hair and one blue eye, tinged with the same madness that was in Riot’s eyes. Bucky had just enough time to wonder if the host had driven Riot mad or if Riot’s madness had infected the host before they were thrown off into the wall behind them.

“ **_Enough,”_ **Riot roared, lunging at them, it's claws leaving deep, raw gouges across their chest.  They staggered back in surprise, the sudden pain shocking because it was so unexpected, blazing along their nerves like lightning.  With a growl, it picked them up like they were a sack of flour, claws sinking into them again as they struggled, then carried them a short distance and threw them into a metal-lined room.  They rolled and hit the far wall with a grunt, then heard the door to the room slam shut and seal itself with a hiss. The hissing sound continued and they tensed, waiting for the smell of gas.

“Leave the host, and he will be spared,” a voice announced, tinny and echoing in the metal room.  “If you do not, he will die.” And that’s when they realized that Hydra wasn’t pumping something into the room, they were taking something out; he could feel Venom’s panic as Bucky’s lungs suddenly started screaming for air.

 **_I can save you,_ ** it said desperately, and Bucky could feel its efforts as it tried to keep him alive, felt the dizziness of being suffocated come and go as it scrambled to fix the damage the lack of air was causing.

“Last warning,” the voice said, and then they heard a siren-like tone start at the bottom end of their hearing range and start getting louder and shriller and more painful.

 _Stop trying to save me and start trying to escape,_ Bucky thought, and he tried to move their body towards the door, intent on breaking out. _Before the noise_ -

 **_I can’t,_ ** Venom said, sounding defeated. **_I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough._ **  Then came the excruciating feeling of being ripped in half on a cellular level; it didn’t hurt in any way that Bucky recognized, but it felt so _wrong_ that it was almost worse than pain. He curled in on himself, trying to keep Venom from withdrawing, but he could feel it slipping away, leaving him hollow and alone.

“No,” he croaked, trying to reach out to Venom, but it crawled away as the tone stopped. Just as Bucky lost consciousness, he heard the door opening again, gasping at the sudden rush of air. Then there was a sharp pain in his neck and everything went dark.


	8. Chapter 8

“Bucky!”  Bucky felt hands on him, touching his face and then fumbling with something at his wrist and legs. He struggled to open his eyes when he heard a couple of sharp, ringing cracks and then was lifted bodily into the air.  “Come on, Bucky, wake up,” the familiar voice said urgently.

He managed to crack an eyelid for a moment, seeing a blurry image of blond hair and blue eyes before sleepiness dragged it shut again. “Ssstttt….?” He slurred.

“Yeah, Bucky, it’s me, Steve.”

“What’s wrong with him?” There was a new voice, a female one, and Bucky’s eyebrows drew together as he was jostled.

“Drugged, I think,” he heard Steve say.

“We won’t get out in time with you carrying him,” the new voice said, then there was a rustle of fabric and a sudden sharp pain in his thigh.

“What are you-“

Bucky flailed as a sudden surge of adrenaline coursed through his body, burning through the drug-induced weariness like fog on a sunny day. “Shit!” he said as he hit the floor, scrambling to his feet and looking for the enemy.

But all he saw were Steve and the angry redhead from the news report. “Steve!” he said, half in relief and half in panic. “What are you doing here?” He glanced around, but didn’t see any sign of Venom, just a handful of fallen Hydra agents. “Where’s Venom?”

“Who’s Venom? We’re here because SHIELD’s been monitoring this place as a potential Hydra base, so when they saw unusual activity they called us in.  What are _you_ doing here? Are you okay?”  Steve’s gaze caught on Bucky’s missing arm and lingered. “What happened to-”

“Maybe reconnect later?” The redhead suggested, raising her eyebrows and gesturing vaguely around them. “Because of the imminent explosion?”

“Right.” As she headed for the nearest ext, Steve followed her at a brisk jog then stopped when he realized Bucky wasn’t following. “Bucky? Come on, we gotta go. They’ve rigged the entire place to blow and we have no idea how long we have-”

“I can’t,” Bucky said, torn.  “Not yet. I have to find someone.”

Steve came back and put his hands on Bucky’s shoulders.  “I’m sorry, Buck, but we have to go. _Now._ ”

Bucky covered one of Steve’s hands with his own. “Look, Steve, I’m so happy to see you, you have no idea. I’m so sorry that I didn’t make it happen sooner. But I can’t go with you right now, I have to save my partner.” He gently pulled Steve’s hand off of him and started down the hallway.  Wherever they were keeping Venom, it was going to be in a deeper, more secured section of the compound. “I’m not leaving it behind.”

“It?” Steve repeated, confused.  “Look, you don’t even know your partner is still alive. We were lucky to even find you. This whole place was a trap and we’re not going to make it out if you don’t-”

Bucky stopped.  “You’re right, this _was_ trap,” he said slowly, and he realized that Hydra wasn’t going to risk their asset burning up in an explosion; if they had already rigged this place to blow, they must be moving him to a different location.  He turned on his heel and sprinted down a different hallway, trying to pull up a map of the compound from memory. “Hey, when you guys were surveilling this place, did you find any evidence of a secret tunnel or something leading in or out?” He called out over his shoulder.

“Bottom level,” the woman said, and that’s when Bucky realized that she and Steve were coming with him. Bucky gave her a grateful look as he made for the stairwell, recognizing it as the one he and Venom had been thrown down.

“Secret tunnel? Bucky, what the _hell_ is going on?” Steve protested even as followed Bucky as he vaulted down to the next level, bypassing the stairs completely.

“Steve, I ask myself that question every goddamn day. I just need you trust me here, okay?”  If Bucky had to guess, a secret bolt hole would probably lead away from the main road leading into the complex and come up in the woods that were located not too far away, where the tree cover would provide concealment.  Under the assumption that the tunnel was probably built in a straight line, and wouldn’t run under any of the other buildings, the most likely place for it would be - “Over here!” he hissed as loudly as he dared as he opened the door into an enormous underground garage with a bizarre variety of vehicles parked inside, ranging from uparmored personnel carriers to minivans to mopeds. He stopped, putting a hand out to stop Steve as well, and held his breath, trying to listen, and was rewarded with the rattling, grating sound of a large metal roll up door being opened.

“Come on, we can’t let them get away,” Bucky said as he started sprinting towards the sound.  If Hydra got away with Venom now, it would take forever to find it again, if ever, and Bucky was _not_ going to leave it in Hydra’s clutches for them to turn it into a twisted, monstrous version of its former self like they’d done with Riot.

They skidded around the corner to see a pair of military-looking trucks lined up at the exit to the garage, waiting for the door to finish opening.  Steve threw his shield at the crank for the door and severed the chain, sending the it crashing back down with an echoing bang. They all took cover as Hydra agents poured out the trucks, and the one in rear started backing up with a squeal of tires.

“Here,” the redhead said and she slid a pistol across the concrete to Bucky. “We’ll keep these clowns busy, go get your friend.”

“ _What?_ ” Steve protested. “Natasha, what are you-” Steve was cut off as the first Hydra agent rounded the corner just as Bucky scooped up the gun and raced after the fleeing truck.

His biggest advantage was that the garage, like all garages, were built in a circle, so while the truck had to go in loops to get to the ground floor, Bucky could go straight up the stairs.  When he came out the door, listening for the roar of the truck, he almost tripped over the dead Hydra agent lying between two vehicles He tucked the pistol into the back of his pants and took the man’s rifle, slinging it over his shoulder, then as the truck came closer, he grabbed the body by its body armor and flung it at the truck as it turned the corner.  

The driver jerked the wheel to avoid the sudden obstacle and plowed the truck into an SUV.  As Bucky approached the vehicle, he raised the rifle and fired into the driver's side window, shattering it and leaving a spray of blood on the windshield.   He ducked when the passenger in the front seat returned fire, and when he heard the door open and someone step out, he dropped to the floor and fired at their feet; as the agent screamed and fell to the ground, Bucky kept shooting until they went silent.

That left no more than two, he calculated, rolling away to take cover behind another vehicle, bracing the rifle between his knees as he checked the clip. “Come on, assholes, get out of the car,” he muttered, risking a glance around the car he was hiding behind to see what they were doing.  “Don’t make me come in after you.”

After a minute, the driver’s side door opened, and Bucky heard a muffled thump as the driver’s body was shoved out onto the pavement then the engine revved. Snarling, Bucky vaulted on top of the car he was hiding behind and jumped onto the roof of the truck.  He grabbed the man behind the steering wheel and threw him at another car, shattering it's windshield. Then he emptied his clip into the roof of the vehicle, turning it and hopefully the last Hydra agent into swiss cheese. He waited a moment to see if there was going to be any return fire, then he jumped down and opened the back door.

"Thank God," he said with relief as he saw a large see-through canister in the floorboard, Venom oozing from side to side in agitation. "I got you, Vee," he said as he let go of the rifle to pull the canister out.  "Christ, I am glad to see you, having only one arm is a pain in the _ass_ -" he coughed and staggered as he felt something punch him in the back before ripping a hole in the leather seat in front of him; for a moment there was only numbness, then as he looked down and saw blood darkening his clothes he realized he'd been shot.  “Oh, yeah,” Bucky said in surprise, sagging against the truck. “I’m not bulletproof anymore.” He turned and saw the shooter, the Hydra agent that he'd thrown through a car; he drew the pistol out and finished the job, but not before the agent fired again and he felt another bullet punch through his abdomen.  The pain of both hit him then, fiery blazes of agony that made him lose his breath from the force of it.

Dropping the gun, he dragged Venom's canister from the truck, trying to make it back to Steve before the explosions started. He made it halfway down the ramp when his legs failed him, sending him to his knees and making him drop the canister.  He stared in dismay, feeling betrayed, as it rolled a few feet away. He tried to stand back up but that didn't work, so he half crawled, half dragged himself towards Venom, smiling weakly as he saw the symbiote throw itself at the walls of the cylinder, trying to get it to roll closer. He stopped, trying to catch his breath, and managed to get a hand on Venom's prison; he fumbled with the catch but it required a code that he didn't have.  He fell back against the concrete, gasping like a fish and feeling useless, trying to gather the strength for one last push, when he heard someone running towards him.

“Bucky! Goddammit, I let you out of my sight for _one minute-_!” Steve stooped into Bucky’s line of sight, rolling him over and searching for his wounds. “Shit,” he breathed, and Bucky wanted to make a comment about that being a hell of a pep talk as Steve hurried to put pressure on the wound in his chest. “Nat!” Steve shouted, trying and failing not to sound panicked. “A little help here!”

“Shit,” the redhead echoed as she ran up and looked at Bucky over Steve’s shoulder. “Come on, we still have to go, get him into the truck.”

Bucky struggled as he felt Steve’s arms slide underneath him.  “No,” he managed, trying again to reach for the canister. “Venom.”

“This?” Steve said, eyeing the black goo that was racing from one end of the canister to the other, frantically looking for weaknesses in its airless prison. “This is what we came back for?”

“The heart wants what the heart wants, Rogers,” the redhead said. “Come on. I need your shield.”

Bucky got a little dizzy, the world starting to go gray at the edges, as Steve turned to let the redhead take the shield off his back. “What are you – _you’re going to let it out?”_

Bucky went limp with relief, eyes closing, when he heard a sharp crack, then another. “If this is what he wanted,” the redhead said with a grunt of effort as she brought the shield down on the glass of the canister again, “then this is what he gets.” Finally there was a sharp pop as the vacuum seal of the canister broke, then the redhead snapped “ _Don’t move!”_ as Steve instinctively backed away from Venom as it slithered across the floor towards Bucky. “Put him down.”

Bucky felt cold concrete against his back and then his heart jumped as he felt a questing tendril curl around his fingers. He forced his eyes open to see Venom crawl over his hand and surge into him, pouring into all the empty spaces it had left behind. As it disappeared beneath his skin, he could feel his fluttering heart grow steadier as his wounds closed. “Hey, Vee, long time no see,” he croaked, huffing out a breathless laugh that turned into a cough as he spat up blood that had been gathering in his lungs.

 **_You are useless without me,_ ** it scolded as it knit Bucky’s flesh together, pushing the bullets out to clatter on the concrete floor and repairing the shredded muscles and tissue.

“What are you talking about, I _rescued_ you,” Bucky said, already feeling stronger.  “And don’t ever do that again, okay? Don’t leave me. We’re a team.”

 **_Yes,_ ** Venom said, pleased. **_We are Venom._ **

Bucky rolled to his knees and started climbing to his feet. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  Just because I said we’re a team doesn’t mean I’m taking your name," he said. "We’re going to pick a _new…”_ He trailed off when he stood and saw that Steve was staring at him with confused horror. "Uh...I can explain."

“He can explain on the way,” the redhead said as a deep, booming rubble shook the building, jogging back towards the crashed truck and stepping over the dead body to get in the driver’s seat. “We need to go.”


	9. Chapter 9

She threw the truck into drive and plowed through the crumpled SUV to head back down to the exit to the secret tunnel.  Everyone was thrown to the side as she took the corners as fast as she could without turning the vehicle over, dust raining from the ceiling as the explosions started coming faster and closer. “Brace yourself,” she said, and hit the gas as they approached the closed garage door.  It didn’t give the first time she rammed it, but it did on the second, and then they were shooting through the tunnel as the first slabs of concrete fell from the ceiling of the garage. A cloud of dust caught up with them as they raced towards the small square of light they could see at the end of the tunnel, momentarily obscuring their vision before they outran it. The transition from the dark tunnel to the bright light of early morning was jarring, making Bucky squint. Free of the tunnel and clear of the imploding building, the redhead slowed the truck and downshifted before coming to a halt in the middle of a gravel road.

“So,” she said, turning in her seat to look at Bucky.  “My name is Natasha," she said, holding her hand out for him to shake. "I know you’re Bucky, because Steve won’t shut up about you.  But I think you have a friend that you should introduce to us before Steve faints.”

“I’m not going to _faint-_ ” Steve protested, but when Venom crawled out of Bucky’s skin to introduce itself, Steve did put his head between his knees and start hyperventilating.

“ ** _Is he always like this?”_   **Venom asked curiously as it withdrew back into Bucky.

“Melodramatic? Yeah,” Natasha said, smiling when Steve raised his head to glare at her. “What? We already knew they had multiple projects involving alien life forms, Steve. Remember the Winter Soldier files?”

“Of course! But I didn’t expect to see one face to face and living in my - my _best friend_ ,” he said, stealing a glance at Bucky.  Bucky crossed his arms defensively and looked out the window; of all of the ways he could have imagined this reunion would go, this would have been at the bottom of the list.

Natasha put the truck back into drive.  “It could be worse. Remember the other one, and how relieved you were when you found out it wasn’t him?”

“Other one?” Bucky repeated. “Big silver guy, crazy as a loon?”

“Yeah, was he a friend of yours?” Natasha met his eyes in the rear view mirror.  “If so, we owe you an apology because he’s very dead.”

“No, that’s good.  I’m just kinda surprised you managed to kill him.”

“Hydra’s files were pretty clear that the best way to kill the Winter Soldiers was with fire, so that’s what we did.”

“Ah.”  Bucky looked back out the window, watching Steve’s reflection as Natasha pulled out onto a paved road; Steve was running his hand over the back of his neck and watching Bucky with a hangdog look on his face, which meant he knew that he'd been acting like an ass.  A thread of memory hinted that an apology would happen as soon as they were alone, and Bucky immediately felt better.   “So where are we going now?”

“Where do you want to go?” Steve said.  He cleared his throat and fidgeted with the ripped leather of the seat. “Because I was, uh, hoping that you’d come home with me. I mean, us,” and his face grew ruddy as Natasha snorted with amusement. 

“Yeah? Really?” A thread of hope made a warm spot in Bucky’s chest.  He put his hand out, palm up, next to Steve’s, and held his breath. " _Both_ of us?"

Steve paused as he stared down at Bucky's hand.  His eyes flew up to meet Bucky's as if he needed to make sure Bucky meant it, then with a smile he put his hand in Bucky’s and squeezed. “Of course, both of you.”

 

 

 

 

_One Month Later_

Bucky leaned his head back and let the warm water rinse the shampoo out of his hair. “Hey, just out of curiosity, can you be in two hosts at once?”

**_I suppose. They’d have to be very close together, though._ **

“Close together, eh? Like touching?” Bucky grinned. “I can manage that.”

**_Why do you-_ ** Venom started to say, then he caught a glimpse of Bucky’s thoughts. **_Ew, weird._ **

“You’re a sentient black goo alien and you think _that’s_ weird?”

**_You procreate with a messy exchange of bodily fluids and you think my ‘goo’ is gross?_ **

Bucky made a face.  When you put it like _that…_ “This isn’t for procreation, Vee.”

**_Then why?_ **

"It’s for fun.” Bucky barely kept himself from rubbing his hands together with glee; memories of his time with Steve had started coming back fast and fierce since they’d been living together, and Bucky was really looking forward to moving past the makeout sessions they’d been doing so far.  “So much fun.”

**_Even weirder._ **

“Look, I’m not going to argue weird with you.  I just need your okay for this, or we need to find something for you to do because I wanna bang Steve like a drum.”

**_Is banging like kissing?_   **Venom liked the kissing and heavy petting that Bucky and Steve had gotten up to so far, which was the whole reason why he'd started this conversation in the first place.

“Yeah, but better.  Just give it a shot, and if no one’s having fun,” because he hadn’t brought up the idea with Steve yet, who was still getting used to listening to Bucky’s one-sided conversations with Venom, “then we will try something different next time.”

**_Deal._ **


End file.
